Doping for Gold ~ The Dangers of Doping | Secrets of the Dead

Article by Diane Kearny
Source: pbs.org

Since the beginning of the Olympic games in Ancient Greece, athletes have taken major steps to become better, faster and stronger than their competitors. Egyptians ingested the ground rear hooves of the Abyssinian mule to improve their performance and Greek athletes ingested mushrooms for their performance-enhancing properties.

“For two years, I took EPO, growth hormone, anabolic steroids, testosterone, amphetamine. Just about everything. That was part of the job.”- Erwan Mentheour, Cyclist

Since the beginning of the Olympic games in Ancient Greece, athletes have taken major steps to become better, faster and stronger than their competitors. Egyptians ingested the ground rear hooves of the Abyssinian mule to improve their performance and Greek athletes ingested mushrooms for their performance-enhancing properties.

Today, the use of performance-enhancing substances in sports have come to be known internationally as "doping" and pertain to the use of drugs by athletes to have a competitive edge, and include any substance, either natural or synthetic, foodstuff or supplement, legal or illegal, that when introduced to the human body gives the user a competitive advantage, according to the CASA National Commission on Sports and Substance Abuse.

The list of performance-enhancing drugs is fairly extensive, according to Dr. Gary Wadler, who serves on the committee that determines The World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA) banned substances list. Some of the most common drugs used among the elite athletes' the ones we worry about the most, include anabolic steroids, human growth hormones (hGH) and Erythropoietin (EPO), he said. For CASA's 2000 Report "Winning at any Cost: Doping in Olympic Sports", Dr. Wadler identified their known side effects, but he says that many of the side effects of these drugs are still unknown.

Anabolic Steroids: Physiological/Adverse Effects

The anabolic steroids used by athletes are synthetic derivatives of the male sex hormone testosterone. Athletes use steroids to achieve increases in muscle mass and strength and/or to improve recovery from training by decreasing tissue breakdown. Anabolic steroids act by binding to specific receptors inside a cell to enhance or inhibit the expression of specific genes. Adverse effects of steroid use include: liver tumors, testicular atrophy, development of abnormal breast tissue in males and masculinizing effects in females (increased body hair, deepening of voice).

Human Growth Hormones (hGH): Physiological/Adverse Effects

Growth hormone is a peptide hormone secreted by the pituitary gland. The release of hGH is controlled by many factors including diet, exercise, nutrition, drugs and various biological feedback mechanisms. Growth hormone appeals to athletes who are trying to increase their lean body mass and shorten recovery time, but to date there are no well-controlled studies of hGH demonstrating actual improvements in strength and endurance. Side effects that have been reported include headache, enlargement of the adenoids with snoring and further growth of hands, feet and face.

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